This invention pertains to glass bottle inspection apparatus and more particularly to apparatus for inspecting the neck finish of bottles, including particularly bottles of any symmetrical shape, including non-round bottles.
A wide variety of inspection apparatus has been devised for quality control of newly manufactured containers.
With respect to inspecting for defects in the neck finish of glass bottles, one common device utilizes an optical illumination and detector means focused at one point on the bottle neck together with a means for rotating the bottle and thus for checking the neck throughout its circumference. Defects in the neck finish of the bottle produce an output responsive electronic signal from the detector, which may be used to ring an alarm or automatically to reject the bottle. Known apparatus of this type utilizes a split concave gripping means near the bottom of the bottle to effect rotation thereof and is thus limited to round bottles.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide such neck finish inspecting apparatus adapted to grip and rotate glass containers or bottles of any symmetrical shape, including particularly non-round bottles.
It is therefore the general object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus and particularly to provide neck finish inspecting apparatus with a gripping means adapted to permit gripping and rotation of the bottle, regardless of the shape of the bottle, while permitting optical inspection of the neck finish or bottle "finish".